So, I'm making a multiplayer game. I told my parents about it and vaguely explained how my server was going to work. (I 100% knew they didn't understand) I explained to them about the fact that I had to use my IP address for the server.

They instantly started freaking out. They thought that because of my server using the IP address that they were going to get hacked.

This got me thinking.

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What if their radical thinking actually was correct?

So, I have a few questions:

If I did use my IP address in the server would I get hacked? (Never giving the IP to anyone)

If I did use my IP address in the server would I get hacked? (Actually sharing the IP address)

If they even did have my IP, would it really matter?

If any of these are true, how could I fix this to make it safer? (So my parents don't flip out again)

There will probably not be many people who would have any interest in doing so until you reach to build some kind of massive network for whatever on it.And if you have one, a home server is possibly not enough anyway.

All modern virusses don't target your IP, but the content of the websites you visit, trying to inject some javascript into a webpage that exploits a browser or plugin. That is the danger these days. Hackers couldn't care less about your IP.

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Ya, my parents are still under the impression that everyone on the internet is either a child predator or a hacker who is going to steal your money. And then they ground me when I try to teach them about how the REAL internet is.

Ya, my parents are still under the impression that everyone on the internet is either a child predator or a hacker who is going to steal your money. And then they ground me when I try to teach them about how the REAL internet is.

Typical intellectually underdeveloped and emotionally immature parents who shouldn't be raising kids. I feel for you.

Haha, I told them that. And then I started talking about how my firewall will block everything. And they started freaking out about how I dont have an anti-virus. I told them that they were useless. And they did not like that.

I wouldn't go so far as to say an antivirus is useless. For example, I haven't had a bacterial or viral infection for years, so I guess I don't need my immune system? The phenomenon here is herd immunity - because antivrus is widespread, you can get away without having one yourself. But if no-one had antivirus, then viruses would be much more prevalent.

I know, if you are smart and sensible and aware, you can get by without AV. But I am not always smart, sensible and aware.

Haha, I told them that. And then I started talking about how my firewall will block everything. And they started freaking out about how I dont have an anti-virus. I told them that they were useless. And they did not like that.

Show them a calendar pointing to 2014, then show them a calendar pointing to 2004. That's where their mindset is. Their brains are, sadly, clocked back over a full decade. And just a decade ago, everybody needed an anti-virus, and you were lucky to find a computer that didn't have Bonzi Buddy on it. Times have changed, and people have some-what developed from the Bonzi Buddy age. Too bad your parents haven't.

I wonder what would happen if you booted into GNU/Linux in front of them, or perhaps just ran something from the command line.I've seen some idiotic people lose their shit watching others do similar, and your parents look like they would fit into that exact same category of stupidity.

As for them not trusting you talking to others online,Perhaps they are watching too much Dateline?

ugh.. that show. It's such blatant fear mongering television. I can't believe how many people still watch it when there's so much evidence that proves 90% of the crap they talk about on that show is exaggerated bullshit.

This is just me, but I wouldn't use my home computer for a public server. Not because of security risks, because not many people would care enough, but because of the network usage.. My ISP is already stingy enough

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This is just me, but I wouldn't use my home computer for a public server. Not because of security risks, because not many people would care enough, but because of the network usage.. My ISP is already stingy enough

Not to mention most ISPs (In the U.S. and Europe anyway) usually offer decent download bandwidths around 40-60 megabits, but their upload bandwidth are usually 10megebits or less, and upload bandwidth are actually more important when running a server.

An IP address on its own it not much for a hacker to get excited about... however you're going to advertise your IP address with a public service, which will instantly make your IP address much more interesting to malicious people who just want to break into your server. Your service however is not valuable to them in any way; you are more likely simply to attract oddbobs who want to have a bit of fun breaking your server for shits and giggles. There is unlikely anything else they can do with it and no motivation other than idle malice to do so.

go buy the cheapest server you can (http://www.123systems.net/ they have been pretty reliable for me, most likely you only need 1gb or 2b max) that has enough performance for what you need.

IF your game suddenly happens to become huge and your cheap server cant handle it, you can just change to a new company where your getting a better server.

IF your game turns out that you don't get the thousands of players you intended, you lost $50 (most likely $30 max) max for a years worth of server hosting to what you can recover from and try a new game and use the same server to host your game.

This $20-$50 you spent for 1 years worth of hosting saved you in electricity bill, which probably would of cost more if you used a home server based on the fact you had a spare computer. if you had to build a new computer to host the server, well you just saved a few hundred initial cost.

Also, depending on if they knew the way you handled packets some how, and if you're using UDP for your game, they could manipulate your game server, and send packets to your game server with certain things such as "start a game" or something like that, and depending on the setup of your server, could crash it.

That's why you just simply have to add error checks for such things, and always make sure if a game is in progress, only recieve packets from the players that are in that game, etc etc.

Also, this is just general info for everyone, not specifically for OP.

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